Stephen Zang column for the Sun

Bulletin

A Death at a Radford University Fraternity Accompanies Great Work by So Many Greeks and Athletes.

I have been writing about hazing deaths since 1976, steadily since winning a Gannett  Foundation grant to research the history of such behaviors nearly a quarter-century ago. Nothing in the way of hazing anymore should surprise and shock me–right?

Wrong.

The sad news that police in Virginia have decided a young man with a bright smile and equally bright future was the casualty of alcohol during hazing has especially saddened me.

Why? Because he is dead, of course, and his legacy for his family thus far is a small pile of press clippings that note how the fraternity and members charged with his death had a long, troubled past with alcohol events. His death comes on the heels of another alcohol-related death of a member of a Cornell University fraternity at the hands of pledges–a startling fact at a school whose hazing deaths went clear back to the first in 1873.

But also because this announcement came on the first day of National Hazing Prevention Week–a week that has seen fraternities, sororities, college athletes, former pro athletes and some dedicated parents and alums jump to attention to put on some great hazing awareness programs. The week puts a lovely waving banner on the great work that HazingPrevention.org and Stophazing.org and the NCAA and National Federation of High Schools (among many others) have done for years to create awareness, and I have been honored the two have let me contribute in the limited ways a journalist can contribute–mainly with research.

These words are written hours before boarding a plane to Peoria to work with some great students from Bradley University who have put together a comprehensive, earnest and admirable set of activities for NHPW. I’m honored to be a small part of it.

Though this death of Mr. Samuel Mason is a grim reminder for us all that the collective job of fighting hazing only has just begun, it is a reminder of why we work so hard to keep accurate hazing statistics, to insist on proper research methods connected with hazing surveys and programs, and to put up a collective front against hard-core critics who denounce or ridicule what we do.

Slowly but surely the international fraternities and sororities are tightening the institutional controls that lead to rogue chapters or rogue members suffering the consequences of alcohol misuse and hazing. Some constitutional amendments remain to be written, and these need undergraduate ballot casters at annual voting conventions to come on board.

It is time for me to catch my plane. It is no longer a time for change when it comes to hazing reform.  The news that this Radford death occurred in late 2010 means, according to my verifiable research, that at least one death has occurred annually since 1970 in the United States. This is far from shocking–it is agonizingly despicable evidence that way too many chapters and sports teams just don’t get why hazing is wrong.

All change is past due. Let’s get the job done.  –Hank Nuwer

Radford fraternity members charged with hazing in connection with death

By Shawna Morrison | The Roanoke Times

Seven men have been charged with hazing and supplying alcohol to an underage person in connection with the death last year of a Radford University student.

Samuel Harris Mason, 20, was found dead at a home on Fairfax Street the morning of Oct. 15.

A medical examiner found that he died of acute ethanol poisoning.

A special Radford grand jury heard testimony over three days and on Sept. 9 handed up indictments against seven members of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Radford, Lt. Andy Wilburn said today.

The men are: Dustin Lee Moore, Ryan N. Lawson, Chadwick N. Evancho, Christopher Michael Pizzi, William Taylor Burke, Christopher Scott Cothren and Louis Hoskins Trible.

Here is the Press-Republican commentary

excerpt

In March 2003, members of Psi Epsilon Chi, an unrecognized fraternity at Plattsburgh State, were holding initiations — hazings, it turns out. One of the willing participants tragically became a victim.

Eighteen-year-old Walter Dean Jennings, a freshman at the college, underwent an astonishing 12 days of hazing at the hands of his perhaps well-intentioned tormenters, forced to perform calisthenics following by enclosure in a 100-degree room, made to drink alcohol until he vomited and, finally, to drink huge quantities of water. It was the water that did him in: He was forced to drink so much that his brain swelled, leading to his death.

For the family of Jennings, it was a staggering and shocking turn of events. You send your son off to college full of hope and promise, and he dies in a hazing ritual that apparently couldn’t have been foreseen or forestalled. For their unspeakable loss, the family was awarded $1.5 million in a wrongful-death suit.

For the perpetrators, it was an astounding wake-up. One of them was sentenced to jail; a dozen others were given community service. Their lives, we assume, will never be fully restored.

The college suffered, too. Publicity reached across the nation. It was a black eye, even though the school had absolutely no role in any of the activities. An on-campus death, particularly under such ugly circumstances, is never good for any institution.

It is with this tragedy still somewhat fresh in everyone’s mind that the Greek organizations at Plattsburgh State scheduled a series of anti-hazing events for the week of Sept. 19 and 23. The events are intentionally slated right off the bat as the school year gets under way.

The Jennings death is one of the focal points of the series. A candlelight vigil will be held in his memory at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Angell College Center’s Amity Plaza.

Here is the link to the Shorthorn story.